Music

Goodbye, Etta James

Etta James has passed away at 73.

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New Favorite Things

Jaclyn Friedman’s Unsolicited Advice column in GOOD. This week she advises Blue Ivy Carter:

One of the things that’s going to be especially weird, if the response to Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s haircut is any indication, is that a non-trivial minority of the global population will soon consider what you do with your body and your sexuality their business. In fact, they’ve already started. Most people would welcome a new addition to their family as “the most beautiful baby in the world,” but in your case, perfect strangers are already being invited to assess that claim.

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Beyonce Baby Drama

Beyonce Baby Drama

I have a long-standing soft spot in my heart for Ms. Knowles, and although I’m not much of a celebrity gossip follower, I was very happy to hear about her giving birth to baby Ivy Blue, with husband Jay-Z. Jay even wrote a song about it — and while it’s admittedly not the hottest track, it is extremely sweet and no I did not tear up I JUST HAVE SOMETHING IN MY EYE.

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Maybe you’re better off outside.

Long before I understood concepts like consent or feminism, I understood creepy, and the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” qualified. It’s meant to be a fun, flirty little song, but listen to the lyrics and it’s wrong. “No means no” is clear and classic, and when a guy is that insistent about ignoring boundaries, it’s a sign to get the hell out of there, cold outside or not.

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Against Coldplay

What SFJ said. Seven out of ten times, Coldplay sound almost exactly like U2—the U2 that exists now, not the wiry, feral U2 of 1980 (which would be a decent idea). U2 have not broken up. This is inefficient. Coldplay should consider copying Big Star or The Monkees. Yes. I don’t hate Coldplay with the [...]

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White devils like it.

White devils like it.

Instead of celebrating our father’s birthday, May 29, 2011, his two ungrateful sons, the singer and the lawyer, performed at the Sasquatch! festival in Washington. My set went better than expected, considering I was performing in front of many white people who had no issue wearing Native American headdresses and face paint and didn’t even [...]

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Here is a pretty video.

No time to post anything of substance today, so look at this pretty video for this pretty song by Lana Del Rey. Here are the lyrics.

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Control: Or, How I Learned My Feminism From 80s & 90s Women in R&B

As promised. Well before I was even remotely cool enough to listen to music that wasn’t on the radio, I was surrounded by a fierce pro-woman message. If, as I wrote before, the message in Dirty Dancing sank in well before I had any idea what was happening to Penny, then it’s obvious that I [...]

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One Silver Dollar: Concerts, Women I Love, Rock’n'roll

[The Kills, performing a cover of Marilyn Monroe's song "One Silver Dollar" from the film River of No Return. Lyrics here.] I learned my politics from rock’n’roll. It’s a fact, but these days I am listening to less and less music that’s overtly political. I like reading between the lines these days, mostly because I [...]

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